Comments by "Michael RCH" (@michaelrch) on "What will Keir Starmer really do if Labour wins the election?" video.

What was really rejected in 2019 was Kier Starmer's plan for a second referendum. The 2017 manifesto was very popular and Labour got a higher percentage of the vote then than they will get this time around. Even with the right of the party actively sabotaging the campaign in 2017...
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@Bungle-UK what were their best and worst policies?
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@mediastudiesnetwork safety from who?
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You spotted that as well...
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@nickwoodward819 well. I guess we'll never know. I say it was Brexit. You say it was something else. All I would say is that the Tories won a huge majority on one phrase. "Get Brexit done" I would say more broadly that the Tories offered a LOT of public spending to pacify previous Labour voters. They actually broke with austerity rhetoric which even Labour had parroted in 2015. The reason they had to do this is because the Overton window had at last been dragged left by Labour. Labour had actually offered a hopeful vision of change in 2017 and 2019, towards an economy that served everyone. That is why it's such s betrayal that Starmer has gone so far right that he is both parroting Liz Truss in saying that growth will fix everything, which is a terrible lie, while actually criticising any attempts at redistribution or even the "pre distribution" that Miliband used to talk about. Starmer's economic vision is one of more inequality, more privatisation and more power to the rich. It's no accident that 21 of the new crop of parliamentary candidates are literal corporate lobbyists, including lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry. The Labour Party has sold out working people even more than under Blair, and that's saying something.
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God Labour are awful
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@Bungle-UK I am guessing you are too old to give a sht about the state of the world in 20 or 30 years. I am not. And my kids certainly aren't. I would rather not live through the chaos we headed for.
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@Bungle-UK So you and I can borrow to buy an asset. A company can borrow to buy an asset, like the private equity companies that own our water companies. That's all fine. But the government - which can literally create money btw - can't. 🤔 And yes. Their 2019 Brexit policy stank. It was a terrible policy. But guess who announced that policy without even clearing it with the party leadership? That's right - Kier f-ing Starmer! Note the 2017 Brexit policy created by John MacDonnell accepted the referendum result. It was a very moderate and reasonable policy which Stella Creasy and the like hated and criticised no end.
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@vgstb the government can literally create the money to buy the utility. It's called fiscal expansion. The asset matches the debt on the balance sheet. You don't have to recover the cost. The national debt is never going to be repaid. Nor should it be. You are still thinking of national finances like a household budget. But they aren't. That's a myth that was put around by Thatcher to justify austerity neoliberal policy. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now.
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Indeed. National debt after WW2 was 250%. Attlee borrowed and invested like crazy and the economy grew at a trend rate of about 5% while debt fell steeply every decade until the 1980s. What's more inequality FELL continuously over that post war period. Then Thatcher came in and - trend growth FELL - trend national debt ROSE (for the first time since the war!) - inequality went through the roof Thatcherism failed on every front UNLESS you were rich. In which case it was brilliant. Thatcherism with Reeves and Starmer are still pushing is class war by the rich on the rest.
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@johnrussell3961 he taxed AND borrowed. What he didn't do was austerity and neoliberalism. Which is what Starmer is offering.
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@Bungle-UK the weather matters when you can't grow food because of storms and droughts. The weather matters when you can't work outside because you drop dead from the heat. The weather matters when floods destroy you home or workplace. The weather matters when extreme weather destroys vital infrastructure. There is a paper released a few weeks ago that shows that the AMOC - the flow of warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic - is showing clear sjgns of slowing due to warming in the Arctic. It's not a linear system so it's quite possible that it could shut off abruptly. That would warm most of the Earth except one area. Without the AMOC winter temperatures In Scotland and northern England will be 20-30C lower. So like northern Canada. And this change will happen over at about 3-5C per decade. Meanwhile the differential between that cold area and Europe and North Africa will lead to constant winds and storms throughout Europe which will be extreme and destructive. And lastly, it will mean that summer heatwaves in the U.K. will likely be far more common and like the temperatures experienced in southern Spain now. Basically, complete chaos. That's why the weather matters.
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@Bungle-UK there have been crop failures. There has been record flooding. There has been record heat waves. There has been record storms. It's all happening now. And it's getting worse. I can't help it if you aren't paying attention.
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@mark-wh2qc literally the fossil fuel industry says it's not natural. I'm afraid you are the one "falling for it"
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@mark-wh2qc the oil companies say it's not natural. Honestly its amazing how well you have been hoodwinked. Scientists have been warning about the effects of greenhouse gases for over a century. As those emissions have rocketed, and the evidence for the science has mounted, their warnings have got louder. Then activists have started warning about those effects. Then those effects start happening. And here you are, still saying it's all faked. I wonder what would convince you. Probably, like a religious believer, no amount of evidence can convince you. Maybe you have to watch as your house gets flooded or something before you will realise how serious this is
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@Man_fay_the_Bru who is that exactly? Who is about invade us? Where have we actually deployed our forces in this century ... - Sudan - Syria - Libya - Iraq - Afghanistan - Somalia - Mali And you are telling me that our armed forces need to get bigger to defend the U.K.? This isn't defence. It's a new form of empire as a vassal state of the USA.
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@paulgerg6879 Russia can't even successfully invade its next door neighbour which had a backwards military. How is it going to invade the U.K. which is 1000s of miles away, better armed, and when there are half a dozen countries in the way or a giant stretch of sea?
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24:27 liberal centrists HATE the left far more than the right because leftists challenge the liberal's self image as the "the good guy". The left shows liberals how they fail on their own terms. That's why this argument is so bitter. And btw Sian did an excellent job here.
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